canijustbejanet (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
canijustbejanet) wrote2008-06-10 07:20 pm
canijustbejanet) wrote2008-06-10 07:20 pm
Picross DS
Well, hm. DS battery is forcing me to do something besides play. So here's a video game review. I know it's an aberration. Noted.
The interface is really fine, easy to get around in. There are hints available, but I've been eschewing them, so I have no clue how they are - though the tutorial thing at the beginning seems to make them look like just the same kind of "here's a starting point" thing as any person would begin with anyway.
The puzzles are timed. This kind of bugs me to begin with, since I'm a solver's point fan (plus, the first thing I lose when rushed is accuracy - in arithmetic and everything else). The real problem I had getting started is that (in normal mode) a misplaced fill-in gets you a time-penalty, and then you know something you didn't before. I want to say successive errors get larger penalties, but I wasn't paying that much attention. (Seriously, I was in a PBN-obsessive time warp last night. Must... Fill... Squares...) The other thing is that the dark squares are what counts, if you don't get all the light-square x's filled in, no big. I am sometimes tempted to skimp on the x's to make up time, but that tends to slow me down eventually because I can't see what's next, especially as the puzzles get harder. It's a little strange. Happily, there is a no-penalty error-blind mode as well. I expect after I finish all the "Normal Mode" puzzles I'll spend plenty of time and energy in the "Free" mode.
My next issue - the biggest puzzle so far as I can see is only 15x15. But still, that's too big for the little DS screen, so there's some zoom-in-zoom-out action that happens while that's going on. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but the picture detail is limited by that, which is disappointing. However, for such small puzzles, the difficulty seems good and varied, definitely not too many super-easy ones. I am pleased.
This is the first game I've bought for myself in a long while. I think this one will hold my attention for a good long time. Not perhaps as long as the fabulous defunct PBN website did, but it'll do.
The interface is really fine, easy to get around in. There are hints available, but I've been eschewing them, so I have no clue how they are - though the tutorial thing at the beginning seems to make them look like just the same kind of "here's a starting point" thing as any person would begin with anyway.
The puzzles are timed. This kind of bugs me to begin with, since I'm a solver's point fan (plus, the first thing I lose when rushed is accuracy - in arithmetic and everything else). The real problem I had getting started is that (in normal mode) a misplaced fill-in gets you a time-penalty, and then you know something you didn't before. I want to say successive errors get larger penalties, but I wasn't paying that much attention. (Seriously, I was in a PBN-obsessive time warp last night. Must... Fill... Squares...) The other thing is that the dark squares are what counts, if you don't get all the light-square x's filled in, no big. I am sometimes tempted to skimp on the x's to make up time, but that tends to slow me down eventually because I can't see what's next, especially as the puzzles get harder. It's a little strange. Happily, there is a no-penalty error-blind mode as well. I expect after I finish all the "Normal Mode" puzzles I'll spend plenty of time and energy in the "Free" mode.
My next issue - the biggest puzzle so far as I can see is only 15x15. But still, that's too big for the little DS screen, so there's some zoom-in-zoom-out action that happens while that's going on. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but the picture detail is limited by that, which is disappointing. However, for such small puzzles, the difficulty seems good and varied, definitely not too many super-easy ones. I am pleased.
This is the first game I've bought for myself in a long while. I think this one will hold my attention for a good long time. Not perhaps as long as the fabulous defunct PBN website did, but it'll do.
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